GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- Florida football inked 20 players on Early Signing Day, locking down all but one pledge and adding three new commitments on the day.

"I think it's a great start, we strengthened a lot of certain areas with talent and depth for the future," Florida head coach Dan Mullen said."I thought it was a pretty solid day. I still think there’s additions we are going to make to this class.”

Mullen is right, it's a start.

The Gators moved up to No. 17 in the Rivals team rankings and No. 6 in the SEC. However, after missing out on a few players in this first round of signings, Mullen and his staff understand what they need to do next.

"There's other areas we still need to fill several spots," said Mullen. "The main areas that I think we're going to look to focus on as we continue to the second signing is obviously going to be secondary and defensive line."

The Gators could very well add one more piece to the puzzle before February with five-star corner Chris Steele electing to announce in the all-star game in January and then early enrolling at his chosen school.

Although some will focus on the misses, the Gators did do a good job of adding depth in positions of need. Florida signed seven offensive linemen.

With UF losing several to graduation and possibly losing offensive tackle Jawaan Taylor to the draft, adding numbers in the trenches was paramount for Florida.

"It's huge," Mullen said. "We lose a bunch this season, of offensive linemen graduating. I think the foundation of teams is really at both lines of scrimmage. If you have great foundations on the offensive and defensive lines, it's pretty easy to build a program around that. If you look at successful teams, they can control the line of scrimmage."

Adding numbers on line is great, but adding offensive linemen that are set to early enroll is even better. Florida is set to have five offensive lineman early enroll in January.

“We’re going to need some of them to play right away [on the offensive line]. We’re hoping to get most of them in early,” he said.

In addition to the offensive line, the Gators needed to start building depth at linebacker. The program has underperformed at recruiting that position in recent years, however, Florida linebackers coach Christian Robinson did a great job of helping the Gators haul in an impressive group which included a pair of four-stars: Mohamoud Diabate and Tyron Hopper.

UF was able to fend off South Carolina away from Hopper after being one of the first to offer the Peach State star.

"He's a guy we identified early that has a lot of potential," said Mullen on Hopper. "He's a guy that's played corner and safety in high school, had a great -- played everywhere, has great length and athleticism and I think he's a guy you're going to see as he gets here his ability to grow. You know, gets in our program and now you have a guy that has length and all of a sudden puts on the size but in -- and is a linebacker that, you know, had corner cover skills in high school, and so that type of athleticism is what we want to have on our defense."

However, as Mullen stated above, the Gators still have some work to do at both defensive tackle and at defensive back.

Mullen was only able to sign one defensive line prospect in four-star defensive tackle Jaelin Humphries.

“He’s a big, physical and athletic guy on the defensive line,” Mullen said. “That’s a big position we’re not finished recruiting yet. Like I said, you have to have a great foundation along the line of scrimmage."

Although the head coach knows that Florida will be in the market for players to fill those roles, he says he is not going to pigeon hole himself by placing restrictions.

"I don’t ever put numbers on stuff. We’re going to look at guys that we think fit in our program, so we’re not going to put numbers on it,” Mullen explained. “I’m not going to force someone in who doesn’t fit with our program just to fill a number.”

The Gators have moved one step closer to securing all their needs in 2019 but Mullen is not ready to call this class a success. It's not because he didn't signed the No. 1 signing class in the nation, it's simply because he has not seen this group play together yet.

"If you haven't heard me before, you'll get the same answer I give just about every single year," Mullen said. "Come ask me in two to three years and I'll tell you if we had a good recruiting class or not."